Illustrated Pips VS Non-Illustrated

[Mimers]

I agree with all of you about the Moody Minors. You would also love the Margaret Peterson Tarot. I love reading with these decks. These type of decks give you a little of both. They have a little more expression, but do not limit the interpretation. I think it is also a nice transition to the straight Marsaille type pips.

 

[spoonbender]

In as much as RWS illustrate a collection of traditional DM's that were applied in many cases to the Italian suits by for example Etteilla (from traditional DMs he had originally collected for french suited ordinary playing cards), I don't see particularly why

I'm not sure what you want me to say, Kwaw, because I already explained that I think it is best to listen to a deck's own voice instead of pasting someone else's meanings onto it. The RWS-meanings may well be based on Etteilla's and other sources, but for me, that doesn't really change anything. So yes, the RWS, with its specific imagery and meanings, is such a long way from the Marseilles that it would seem "blasphemous" to me to simply force it onto the deck...

 

[6 Haunted Days]

All minor arcana are illustrated. A curlicue of flowers around three cups is an illustration. But many of the modern ones are scenic.

I like quite a few scenic decks and use them regularly, but they are not as good for developing intuition and imagination as those decks without scenes on the minor arcana. Basically, scenes are the creator's own vision, imagination and intuition projected onto the arcana, and that directs one's own vision, imagination and intuition, instead of letting it run free as it can with non-scenic decks.

Just as I enjoy other people's stories and hearing their ideas, and taking them further in my own mind, I enjoy scenic decks. Just as I enjoy making up stories from basic elements and feeling the weather in the breath of the wind, I enjoy non-scenic decks. I learnt how to write poetry by imitating others' - but for my own poetry, I need to cut loose, I need the bare grammar and vocabulary of tarot without a pre-set storyline, and that's found in non-scenic decks.


To give a concrete example, with the 3 of Cups. If I look at three girls dancing, that limits my imagination and the possible meanings much more than if I see 3 Cups in a curlicue of flowers, which might be 3 cups for anything - joy or sadness, a party, a menage-à-trois, a business meeting in a pub, a spiritual communion, a church, a pyramid or a tetraktys, etc. Why limit my imagination to 3 girls dancing, when I can have so much more, and wider? The intuition too has to become that much sharper and more precise when you don't have the crutch of someone else's vision.

Basically, scenes on the pips are the training wheels of tarot, when it comes to using tarot for divination (if it is for meditation or for art creation or appreciation, that's another matter because there scenes play another function).

Wonderful thoughts on the differences of scenic and non-scenic decks. Much better term than non-illustrated, that term always seemed strange to me. The reasons you gave are why I have been interested for some time in buying a deck of non-scenics and having a go, though a bit intimidated I just need to trust myself and any knowledge I have accumelated over the years concering suit associations, numerology, astrology, elements and elemental dignities, which I can't quite seem to wrap my head around completely I can imagine though, just letting go, relaxing and letting my knowledge take over can be a very freeing experience with no scenes to "hem" in my interpertation. With scenics, no matter how hard I try to use associations, the scene does carry weight and kind of defines it.

The mention of "moody minors" {love the term!) make absolute sense! I adore the Swedish Witch, and while I have not devoted the time and attention to it as I would like, I realized I had been using the more intuitive suit association and elements when I do read and study with it. Instead of me complaining about "why does the 4 of Wands just have 4 rods with animal heads on them?" attempting to interpet with RWS meanings, I can look at them as moody minors and use the non-scenic method (though of course they are a delightful mixture of both). Thanks for that new idea, it's opened a whole new world with certain decks

Miss 6

 

[kwaw]

I'm not sure what you want me to say, Kwaw, because I already explained that I think it is best to listen to a deck's own voice instead of pasting someone else's meanings onto it. The RWS-meanings may well be based on Etteilla's and other sources, but for me, that doesn't really change anything. So yes, the RWS, with its specific imagery and meanings, is such a long way from the Marseilles that it would seem "blasphemous" to me to simply force it onto the deck...

Well my apologies spoonbender, I obviously misunderstood your specific example of the RWS as a type of sectarian prejudice.

Kwaw

 

[Emily]

I think that was my problem with trying to read a Marseilles deck - I tried to read it like a RWS and soon found out that to try and read a Marseilles deck like that is pointless - I might just have well gone back to the RWS.

I'm not entirely sure what my reading style is now - up until 5 or 6 weeks ago I was still reading RWS and clone decks but I'm using the Liber T now and I seem to be using a mix of both Thoth, a little RWS and a lot of intuition. Now the cards of the Liber T are a sort of a mix too - they look like Thoth but then have little scene's on the cards too.

But it means I can use both colour and numerology when reading this deck.

But a Marseilles deck is what it is - and to read one you need to be able to focus on the arrangements of the pip cards - I'd love to be able to read a Marseilles deck but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to dedicate enough time to learn a new system.

 

[prudence]

I like Pip decks, Marseilles usually but there are others too, and I would like to throw the i Naibi di Giovanni Vacchetta deck into the moody minors category for you all. It is a lovely deck, and with just enough scenery on the minors to help your intuition along.

Let me see if I can find a link to it...

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/tarot-of-the-master/index.shtml#cards

This is a link to the Lo Scarabeo version of the deck, I have the Il Meneghello one, and it is colored differently, and has different lamination/finish.

If you go to Tarot Garden and use the key word Naibi it will be at the bottom of the page.....(after the LoS version and a black and white version)

edit to add; if you are going for a Marseille deck, but dislike bright colors, this is one that I love dearly, and though it is not a "pure" TdM, it is pretty close, imo. This is the LoS version, but again I have the Il Meneghello deck, with different finish etc (also, they come in a really cool "box" that looks like a book cover and has ribbon ties, very nice) It is called the Ancient tarot of Bologna by LoS, and a much longer name by il Meneghello, but you can find it easily by using the keywords "Zoni, and Bologna".
http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/ancient-bologna/index.shtml

 

[Lee]

[...] I think it is best to listen to a deck's own voice instead of pasting someone else's meanings onto it.

But what is the Marseille's own voice? What does it say? Perhaps it changes depending on who is listening...

When I read with Marseille decks, I usually use a suit+number system and also I see what the various visual elements suggest to me. I do it this way because I find those methods to be interesting and stimulating. But using such methods, it seems to me, aren't any more intrinsic to the deck than using any other methods. In other words, I don't believe that using numerology or elements are any more intrinsic to the deck than using RWS-derived or any other meanings.

I don't believe that the person who originally designed the pattern of Marseille pip cards did so with divination in mind. So by the very act of using those cards for divination, we're necessarily pasting someone else's meanings on them, because they had no specifically intended divinatory meanings built into them.

People in the 17th or 18th centuries who used the tarot for divination wouldn't have used a suit+number system. They would probably have used simple fortune-telling type meanings, perhaps similar to Etteilla's. Looked at from this perspective, RWS-derived meanings -- which, as Kwaw has pointed out, are themselves in part derived from Etteilla -- might thus be seen as a more "authentic" manner of reading Marseille pips.

I'm not really advocating one method over another, although, as I say, personally I use suit+number and visual association (usually). My point is that all methods of assigning meaning to Marseille pips are equally arbitrary, and there isn't one method which is better or truer than any other -- other than, of course, that method which proves most useful to each individual reader.

-- Lee

 

[Moonbow]

In some part what Lee says makes perfect sense to me, there is no intrinsic way of reading with a Marseilles. I also would prefer to say that I don't listen to the deck but instead I listen carefully to myself while looking at the deck.

I actually tried, at one time, to fit the WCS meanings into a Marseilles so that I could read it. And for anyone who goes this route, it's a very difficult and cold route to take because it means that for each card you have to memorise the WCS (or clone) card. That isn't reading Tarot, that is a dis-jointed and difficult study of trying to make things fit. But, I also believe that for every reading we do we, intentionally or not, we include part of ourselves, so, if you have WCS meanings in you from way back, they may come out sometimes. If that meaning strikes you more than anything else about the card then you give that to the client. As much as I don't believe in deliberately fitting one system into another entirely different one, I also believe in not deliberately fighting the knowledge already in you. We all have memories and experiences that play a part in what we say to people during a reading. To me, the most important thing in reading with a Marseilles is to be free to say what comes, and that, is what makes it a very special reading deck.

Lee, great to see you here.

 

[Jewel]

I agree with all of you about the Moody Minors. You would also love the Margaret Peterson Tarot. I love reading with these decks. These type of decks give you a little of both. They have a little more expression, but do not limit the interpretation. I think it is also a nice transition to the straight Marsaille type pips.

That is exactly why I love decks with Moody Minors. The colors and limited imagery spark my intuition and at the same time does not confine me. It is a little of both. They really function as a gateway. The Margaret Peterson definetly falls in this category as does the Ananda.

 

[spoonbender]

But what is the Marseille's own voice? What does it say? Perhaps it changes depending on who is listening...

Um, OK, I guess I wasn't clear enough about that. Of course there's no such thing as the Marseilles having an actual, definite voice - and of course it'll depend on the reader. With "listening to a deck's own voice", I mean just letting the deck be - not forcing anything onto it, but seeing what your own interpretation of the cards is. That seems like a much more real (and, yes, a better) way of getting in touch with a deck than relying on someone else's fixed divinatory meanings.

Guess we've just found another thing we disagree about.